The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima

First published in Japan in 1954; cover shown is the 1971 Berkley (USA) paperback edition.
Cover shows a detail of Katsushika Hokusai's iconic The Great Wave woodcut, circa 1831.
142p. Classic fiction.

First sentence: Uta-Jima - Song Island - has only about fourteen hundred inhabitants and a coastline of something under three miles.